N.C. Central University has a new alumni relations director.

She is Anita B. Walton, and she begins work Aug. 24.

Walton comes to NCCU from UNC Chapel Hill, where she is currently the homecoming and affinity reunion manager. She's been at UNC-CH for 18 years and has budgeted and supervised more than 500 programs in student affairs and alumni relations.

"I have had a very successful career at UNC-Chapel Hill and I've learned a lot," she said in a news release. "But North Carolina Central University is about to embark on a very exciting time with the impending Centennial and I wanted to be a part of that."

Walton has a bachelor's degree from UNC-CH and a master's degree in higher education administration from N.C. State.

For years, top brass across the UNC system have received a tidy perk at the time of their retirement - a year's pay at their full salary.

Under a UNC system policy formalized several years ago, the heads of public university campuses and an array of other administrators have received this pay - all public money - with very few strings attached. And in some cases, campuses violated policy and gave it to people who shouldn't have received it.

In the News & Observer today, we explore this issue, which has tapped the North Carolina taxpayer for about $8 million over the last five years.

For a brief summary of many of the high-profile folks who benefitted from this policy - including former UNC system President Molly Broad and others - click here.

And for a look at what one former university leader - former UNC Chapel Hill Chancellor James Moeser - did after stepping away from the job - check out this story.

Any day now.

That's the word from the commissioner of the Mid-Eastern Athletic Conference, which is reviewing N.C. Central University's application to join.

Any day now.

Writing this week in The Durham News, Triangle Tribune sports editor Bonitta Best takes the conference to task a bit for dragging its feet.

She writes in part:

"And let's not forget NCCU's most important asset: its countrywide fan base. With the economy squeezing wallets and advertisers scaling back on sponsorships, the MEAC needs all the leverage it can get.

Somebody needs to remind them of that since NCCU can't. Instead of saying something like "What the heck is taking so dang long? Do we have to turn into Keith Sweat and beg all night long?" [NCCU athletic director Ingrid] Wicker-McCree has to play diplomat.

"We're looking forward to joining the conference, and we expect a decision very soon."

Yep, A-N-Y day now; yessiree.

Here's the whole column.

New N.C. Central University men's basketball LeVelle Moton and former
University of North Carolina basketball teammates David Noel and Sean
May will host their second annual Celebrity Golf Classic at 8:30 a.m.
Aug. 17 at Brier Creek Country Club in Raleigh.

Proceeds will benefit the Boys and Girls Club of Raleigh and N.C. Central scholarship funds.

Among the invited guests are many other well-known Triangle sports figures, according to an event news release.

N.C. Central University plans to put 300 of its upperclassmen up in a Durham hotel this fall due to overcrowding.

The students will likely live at least for one semester in the Millennium Hotel near Morreene Road, about 10 minutes from campus.

The reason: The university is projecting far more new freshmen this fall than previously anticipated, a result, perhaps of the weak economy and the desire for more students to seek education.

Here's the story.

Police from N.C. Central University and the city of Durham will conduct a drill Wednesday on how to respond to a shooter on campus.

Durham fire and rescue personnel will participate as well.

It will be held from 8 to 11 a.m. at the Hubbard-Totten Building on campus. The building will be roped off to visitors.

A parking lot near the Elder Student Union on Fayetteville Street will be used for a staging area.

Remember - it's only a drill.

N.C. Central University will host an academic conference examining the global reach of U2 this fall.

The event runs Oct. 2-4, coinciding with the Irish rock band's Oct. 3 tour date at Carter-Finley Stadium in Raleigh.

Though a university press release trumpeting the event advertises that U2 will "host" the conference, it isn't clear whether the band will even make an appearance. According to event's website, the conference will feature music journalists and others who have worked with the band.

The conference is titled "U2: The Hype and the Feedback."

"TThis will be the place to meet and hear people long connected to U2 and to covering their career," said the event's organizer, Scott Calhoun, who, according to the website, is an English professor and "U2 academician."

I haven't been able to reach Calhoun for clarification on the band's level of participation in the conference. Check back for updates.

N.C. Central University is reporting at least one confirmed case of the H1N1 virus at one of its summer camps.

The flu virus, commonly referred to as swine flu, has been confirmed at NCCU's Renaissance Upward Bound Camp. There is one confirmed case and several other suspected cases, officials say.

By late last week, the parents of each camper had been contacted, campus officials said.The camp has bee cancelled for the remainder of the current session and all campers, who hail from Edgecombe and Durham counties, have returned home.

This particular flu strain has found a home at summer camps this year. At Duke last month, more than a dozen youngsters were sickened, none too seriously.

 As an undergrad at N.C. Central University half a century ago, Timothy McIntosh had an entire campus counting on him.

McIntosh was the campus bell-ringer. Five times a day, seven days a week, for four years, McIntosh would pull the rope on the old bell that stands in the center of campus, signaling to students that it was time to wake, eat, or go to class.

For that, he earned sixty bucks a month.

“It was a good job; it got me through college,” McIntosh quipped Tuesday. “That was my main source of income.”

McIntosh came to NCCU from Wilson, where he grew up. He studied mathematics and went on to a career doing civilian financial work for the Army.

McIntosh, now 69, retired and living in Maryland, was among scores of proud NCCU alums who returned to campus Tuesday to commemorate their alma mater’s Charter Day, the 100th anniversary of its incorporation.

McIntosh kicked off Tuesday’s event — and a year of planned activities celebrating NCCU’s centennial — with one more ring of the bell.

“At six in the morning, he was none too popular with the folks in the residence halls nearest the bell,” quipped NCCU Chancellor Charlie Nelms, who presided over Tuesday’s events and spoke at length of the importance that bell played in the life of the campus.

UNC system President Erskine Bowles spoke as well. He spoke of NCCU's long legacy as a partner to the Durham community.
"Looking back and reliving such historic moments helps reconnect each of us to this university, and this university to its roots," Bowles said.

He spoke of the pride felt by alums; at least twice, he mentioned Ben Ruffin, the proud NCCU alumnus who would become the first African-American chairman of the UNC system's Board of Governors before dying unexpectedly in 2006.

And he spoke quite well of Nelms, the chancellor Bowles hired in 2007 to replace James Ammons.

He said Nelms [pictured, left] has set high standards for faculty, staff and students alike - through initiatives like a customer service initiative and the raising of academic minimum standards.

"Charlie Nelms has that same kind of vision and that same kind of courage shown by NCCU founder James Shepard," Bowles told a packed house at the B.N. Duke Auditorium.

There were some strange, tense moments Wednesday during a meeting of N.C. Central University's Board of Trustees. It was not this governing board's finest hour, at least in terms of understanding and following rules of order.

This was a telephone meeting, so all trustees called in from afar while Chancellor Charlie Nelms and his administrative staffers on campus spoke using a speakerphone.

The first blip came when Nelms and his staff requested that the board approve the staff's list of preferred designers for a renovation of a campus recreation complex. This is the sort of vote that campus trustee boards do routinely and generally without comment.

But this time, members of the board's building committee went back and forth for more than 20 minutes trying to figure out what they had jurisdiction over, when and if they get to review the list of designers, and whether they could hold an impromptu committee meeting as the full board was meeting.

The board was not prepared to approve the request, vexing Nelms, who at one point blurted out that the university needed this decision made and not delayed.